Day 4: Boulder, CO to Bozeman, MT

I woke up in a bad mood. The cats have gotten loud and obnoxious during the nights, I guess to get out pent up energy from the long car rides. I wake up anytime they make a noise to try to quiet them so they don’t wake up my Dad, who has to be alert for the road. And Jack threw up. That’s not unusual. He’s a binger and purger who has not figured out the weight loss thing yet. So after getting up way earlier than I planned on and then stepping in and cleaning up cat barf, we got on the road to get our doughnuts. Which were not there; a Subway stood in Tastefully Toasted’s place. I seriously had looked forward to these doughnuts for 2 months, and they weren’t there. Bad mood continues.

We drive out of Colorado, and see the mountains, but don’t really drive through them (see pic to the left). We get to Wyoming and feel a bit like Kansas again. The scenery is very mundane and unchanging. Rolling plains and small hills, barely any trees, tiny towns, no radio or cell phone signal. However, I’ve never seen so many deer before. And for the record, Wyoming and Montana could compete with Kentucky for sheer number of horses seen.

Sidebar: I think it was somewhere in Wyoming when Robb called me and told me the movers had arrived, but the driver of the truck claimed that he couldn’t fit his 18-wheeler into our complex. This is the same guy who complained about getting his truck into our complex in Orlando, but managed to do after a little bit of effort. Robb offered to help move items himself, even if the truck was parked farther away. He offered to go door to door in the apartment complex to ask people to move their cars. He yelled. This guy didn’t even TRY to get his truck in. So they charged us $370 to put the stuff in a smaller truck and deliver it the next day. We are not happy and are arguing with the moving company. Our apartment complex has written a letter for us saying that they’ve had 18-wheelers in here before. And I’m filing official complaints and trying to get our money back.

So my Dad and I get to Bozeman, Montana and it’s been a pretty horrible day. In addition to everything else, Malibu seems to be done with traveling. While she’s still doing good by most cat standards, you can tell she’s starting to stress out more. My Dad’s been looking forward to steaks in Montana, but this tiny college town only has a couple of steak places and they’re a little out of our price league. So we stop in a Montana pizza chain, which looks promising, but our pizza is cold, even after it was reheated at our request. And to be honest, the Montana scenery (see pic to the left) disappoints me a little. I don’t know what I imagined, and while it was beautiful, it wasn’t especially impressive. A lot like Wyoming.

Dad and the cats have bonded at this point. Dad is impressed with their traveling ability and is especially fond of Jack because he doesn't bother us at all. Dad is a little disturbed that Jack has chosen to sleep in the litter box on occasion, but tonight he allows them to cuddle briefly on his bed.